Murphy’s Law

We don’t have a Netflix account; we live near the justly famed VideoRoom, on East 86th between First and Second Avenues, which has been in business for more than thirty years and has a fittingly rich collection. Spontaneity is thus still the order of the day in our household, and Louise, who’s eleven, exercised it Saturday in the company of her classmate, who was staying over with us for dinner and a movie. The DVD she chose, “one of hers,” is also very much one of mine: “Norbit.” From the time of the movie’s release, two years ago, it struck me as a scintillating piece of psychodrama in which Eddie Murphy vents, and, one hopes, exorcises, the twin demons of abuse and abusiveness, as well as other demons involving sex and race and even a few arising from Chinese food and spearfishing. It’s also riotously funny, and remains so on a sixth or seventh viewing; my whole family finds it so, including my most literary spouse, Maja, who agrees that the critical drubbing it received is pure snobbery. Murphy’s triple turn as the meek and oppressed Norbit, the grotesque harridan Rasputia, and Mr. Wong, Norbit’s father-surrogate, is so astonishing that it’s easy to forget, while watching, that they’re really the same actor. It was widely rumored that Murphy, who got an Oscar nomination for his serious turn in “Dreamgirls,” lost out in the voting when, soon thereafter, “Norbit” was released. Comedy gets no respect; I’d have given him an Oscar for “Norbit” itself.

Louise, a miniature mimic, does both Norbit (“That isn’t science”) and Rasputia (“How you doin’”), but she was a little shy about cutting loose, Murphy-style, in front of her friend.